dynamic quest/world events? that shit will get boring after 2 weeks, then what...

I found the dynamic world events just as fun as PvE dungeons, and the little bit of actual dungeon I played was more enjoyable than any PvE I've done since 40 mans in WoW. PvE gets old after a while, but there will be new content and there is the PvP which is one of the main reasons I purchased this game.

I found the dynamic world events just as fun as PvE dungeons, and the little bit of actual dungeon I played was more enjoyable than any PvE I've done since 40 mans in WoW. PvE gets old after a while, but there will be new content and there is the PvP which is one of the main reasons I purchased this game.

He was playing WoW though, and really I can't see that working even in WoW outside of some easy pve stuff like quests and heroic 5 man dungeons once they are overgeared.

And compared to WoW the PvE in this game is much more active and difficult. you have to be moving all the time, you don't just stand and shoot like in wow. and you have to time dodges and stuff to get out of attacks and what not. I just don't really see the controller working with the amount of mobility he's going to be needing.

I mean, sure you CAN just stand and shoot like in WoW, and it will work in the newbie areas fairly well, outside of that, you'll just die.

In wow he have a 1800 exp on arena and a bit more in Rbg, everyone told him that joypad limits his gameplay... but he will not listen to reason.

Subjective. Just as his opinion/theory on dynamic quests/world events is subjective/uninformed. Why the need to flamebait? I still had fun in raids after 6 resets (it's also dependant on company!), I had fun in the world of Tyria as well after way too many hours spent >.>.

I'll add in my 5 likes and dislikes into this post to contribute more to the thread topic though.

1. Active and engaging combat system.
2. RvR style PvP. (WvW) I really loved the RvR in WAR and honestly WvW sounded a lot like it to me and that alone sold me on the game.
3. Balanced structured PvP. Gone are the days of WoW Arena's where you are rewarded for time spent gathering PvE epix rather than skill, needing to level your character in order to compete making all non maxed level pvp imbalanced. And rampant class imbalances from pve because blizzard never learned to separate the two game modes. Guild Wars 2 does pvp right and it's got a bright future as an esport.
4. The holy trinity is dead. Sure I will miss healing, but bring the player not the class is the best thing ever.
5. Power Plateau. Power on gear levels off not long after hitting 80, so no longer are you hunting for shinier epix for better stats, now it's balanced and the content can be balanced as well because now you are hunting for cosmetics and playing to have fun. No longer will new content render older content obsolete because of gear power scaling. It's about experiencing the content. Some say that's a negative because shinier purplz or whats the point? But really, for the vast majority of players, the better gear was a means to an end, it was required to beat the content and experience it. Now that barrier is gone and they can experience it and it can be challenging, without removing the challenge of the older content.
6. There is no subscription fee.

I could go on all day really but I'll list some negatives.

1. The camera still bothers me. It's not as responsive as I would like, it trails behind my mouse a bit, so it's like dragging it through mud.
2. No more skill shots. And by that I mean running, jumping spinning shooting and landing and continuing forward. Can't use abilities while in the air.
3. Strafing sideways is slower than running forward. There are bonuses to this but I'm used to the old warcraft style of it being slightly faster than running and even though it might be good I still don't like it very much.
4. I struggle at this point to find more gripes.

Just to clarify quickly about the real cash money shop, AKA the Gem store, by spending some money you can acquire a currency called Gems. these can be spent on items in the gem store. The lowest amount you can purchase is $10 which gives you 800 gems. so $1 per 80 gems. The items in the shop are cosmetic, you cannot buy power. And when someone tells you buying a short xp buff is = buying power, just facepalm and walk away. He's an idiot.

The best part about the gem store though is players who have bought gems have the option of exchanging their gems for in game cash. aka Gold. Now these gems have to have been purchased first. And the gold the exchange for gems has to have been farmed. It's a player exchange so If I have gold I can buy some gems from someone who's selling them. meaning You, me, anyone playing the game, can buy whatever they want from the cash shop, without spending a dime of real cash money.

Another thing that's important to mention is the trading post, where all the auctions buying and selling and the gem store and exchange are located are region based not server based. So that means prices on your server are the same on every server meaning you are almost guaranteed to have someone buying and selling gems. which will keep the exchange rate the same across servers, rather than being cheaper on some servers and much more expensive on others.

That's all I'll say for this post, it's quite long enough by this point I think.

---------- Post added 2012-08-22 at 06:07 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Bradley

In wow he have a 1800 exp on arena and a bit more in Rbg, everyone told him that joypad limits his gameplay... but he will not listen to reason.

It really does. This is just a classic case of you guys being better than 1800 but he's bringing ya down. essentially, he's getting carried. It's easy enough for good players to do, I mean if you are a good player you can take a dude to 2k rating even if he just afk's the entire match. and in RBG's individual performance has less of an impact on the overall match.

Positive:
1: Awesome PVP
2: Best combat i have yet seen in a MMO
3: Freedom (so much to explore,)
4: Challenging (not at low levels tho, but at higher levels it is)
5: High skillcap

(This is just my major positive things)

Negative:
1: No instanced PVE with more than 5 players.
2: Some animations sometimes seem a little clunky.
3: Wierd optimization (But herd that Nvidia should have a fix if they use the beta drivers)
4: No large scaled organized and instanced PVP (think RBG from WOW)
5: ...Asura reminds me of gnomes (Could not get on a 5th one...)

It really does. This is just a classic case of you guys being better than 1800 but he's bringing ya down. essentially, he's getting carried. It's easy enough for good players to do, I mean if you are a good player you can take a dude to 2k rating even if he just afk's the entire match. and in RBG's individual performance has less of an impact on the overall match.

He dont play in Rbg or arena with me anymore if not for "fun" cause we rage to much (avoiding unnecessary disputes)
I saw him play and it's not bad, and in his group he brings forward the team (a bit sad in some cases, seen playing with pad :P)
Imho he can easly reach 1900 with the pad and right ppl, and he will be better with a keyboard, but why bother if he is happy as it is

He dont play in Rbg or arena with me anymore if not for "fun" cause we rage to much (avoiding unnecessary disputes)
I saw him play and it's not bad, and in his group he brings forward the team (a bit sad in some cases, seen playing with pad :P)
Imho he can easly reach 1900 with the pad and right ppl, and he will be better with a keyboard, but why bother if he is happy as it is

Yeah that's fine if you don't want to be competitive. Not everyone wants to be. It just really limits a lot of extremely important things in PvP. things you need in order to up your game and play better. Such as character control, situational awareness, and positioning. It also limits reaction times and I could go on and on. Knowledge will only get you so far, then you will start facing players who are better at their character control, situational awareness and positioning, and you will never move past them.

But honestly I'd be surprised if he's really good enough for that rating with a joypad. but then again it's been a while since i paid attention to the competitive WoW escene, and even when I last paid attention it was taking it's dieing breath so idk. 1900 might be the new 1400 for all i know /shrug.

dynamic quest/world events? that shit will get boring after 2 weeks, then what...

at your last point how is it different then by what your claiming, raid lfr see all content for 2 weeks then it gets boring...the world events and dynamic events tell story of zones...dynamically scale with people there and also scale with outcome...how the fuck would that get boring? and we dont even know about orr yet...that place could be pimping for all we know. You see extremely cynical =S

I did MinionNecro and thought 'meh', and Engineer that I only got to level 5 or so but wasn't impressed.

I played Necro in BWE1 and liked it a lot. Then played Guardian in BWE2 and didn't really like it. I normally like Paladin type classes but I somehow really couldn't connect to the Guardian. I asked because I'm a bit on the fence at the moment what to choose, and didn't really play enough during BWEs (due to not wanting to spoil it) to make that decision easy.

And I say "second hand" because unfortunately I haven't played any of the betas, all of my impressions are gleamed from info I have read (I've spent FAR TOO LONG reading the GW2 wiki) and watching dozens of hours of gameplay footage on youtube.

So I'll divide this by saying the things I like about the game, the things I dislike about the game, and the things I'm on the fence (may or may not like, I'll have to actually play before I make up my mind)

This is gonna be a long one BTW, there's no short way to summarize this game.

THE GOOD

1: No Monthly Fees. I wont beat around the bush, I'm a wow player, I love wow, and I don't see myself retiring from it any time soon. HOWEVER, one of wow's major flaws, is the terribly slow pace in which new content is released. Its a double-edged sword really, because the devs can make the content ultra-hard and make it take lots of time to beat, in which case you'll bang your head against a wall for months due to not being able to kill this one boss, or they make the content easy, so you get to see the content, but unfortunately burn it up too fast, and ending up with nothing to do while they release the next major patch. They've gone with the latter solution, and this leaves me with the following conundrum:

What to do when I've done all there is to be done in the game? The answer is easy: play something else. But most (Competent) MMOs out there require a monthly fee, and I'm not the type that has enough money to just pay 2 subscriptions. There comes GW2 to the rescue!. Game is fun, and its free, so, I can play wow, do the content, once I'm bored/burned out, just move to GW2, and play GW2 until they release the next patch. Currently I plan to play the game in 2month cycles (2 months of wow, then GW2 till next patch is out, rinse&repeat). Obviously I wouldn't be able to do this if GW2 had a sub, so thank god its free.

2: You are actually glad to see other players. In most, nay, ALL MMOs out there, you are almost never happy to see another player. If you see another player, or worse, several lots of players, it just means you now have competition for those quest-mobs you are killing, and grouping up is most of the time not an option because then you get less exp, less money, if there's a random drop you have to share it, most of the time, the one getting the killing blow is the one that gets credit for the quest, ect ect. And this is not even counting high level players griefing you by simply oneshoting everything within sight so you have absolutely nothing at all to kill.

This DOES NOT HAPPENS in this game. For one thing, higher-level players can't just go and ruin your fun, if you are a high level player and enter a low level zone, your level is adjusted to that zone, so you won't oneshot everything. Sure you may hit marginally harder than a player of that level but not by a significantly larger margin, you certainly wont be 1shotting anything at all. But most importantly, there is no mob tapping on this game. Whatsoever. If I'm by myself on the woods, and I kill a bear by myself, I get 100 xp, and 10 copper. If I'm in the woods, and start fighting a bear by myself, and then this other player arrives and starts attacking MY mob, and between the 2 of us, we kill it, not only I still get the same 100 xp, and 10 copper, so does the other player. We both get the same amount, except the bear died faster. We both also get credit for whatever quest we're doing.

This applies to parties too, 5 friends can team up, and start killing stuff, and all in the party will get the same exp and money as if they were by themselves, except you kill stuff faster. In this regard, you will never be sad that another player or group of players is nearby, at best it means you can complete your tasks faster, at worst, they could call you names :P (in which case a simple use of the /ignore function solves that problem). Its entirely viable for you to level up by following up another player, and attacking everything he does, and the both of you still get credit for everything, still get the same exp, and money, ect.

3: There are no "Melee classes" or "Ranged Classes".: This one is a biggie. Again, won't beat around the bush: I'm a melee gal, I don't like casters, I don't like fighting from afar, I like to tackle my foes head on, played a DK in wow, played a Marauder on SWTOR, Played a Warsmith on Lineage II, bottom line: I fight my enemies head on. You won't see me on a crappy robe, casting a fireball, its most of the time jumping around stabing people in the face. So for me, its always a sore point how blatantly unbalanced most MMOs are in the Ranged vs Melee department. More often than not, ranged toons are given lots of snares, roots, and stuns to keep their enemies away, and while the melee often get gap-closers, they come with a hefty cooldown. So the ranged can (and often do) kite the melee, and the melee has no other option but watch helplessly as their foes pelt them from range without being able to do anything about it till their charge/grip/whatever is off cooldown.

This to me is unfair beyond words. If a Ranged character can attack me up close and from a distance, why do I have to be within inches if I want to attack them too? this even has problems in PVE as well, if there's a boss with a lot of movement, and a lot of stuff on the ground, Ranged toons hardly have to struggle, whereas Melee have to work twice as hard, only to get subpar results.

GW2 does away with that. Every class in the game is melee and ranged at the same time, not only are you encouraged to have with you a melee weapon and a range weapon at any time, if you don't you'll suffer. This is the only game where I've seen that the mage class can equip a melee weapon, and actually go toe-to-toe with the enemies, and you totally can, be an elementalist, equip dual-daggers, and your spells will have a very short range, but hit significantly harder. OR use a staff, in which case your spells will have more range, but be not as strong.

You can be a warrior, and enjoy bashing enemies in the face with a hammer, OR if that sissy mesmer is pelting you with lazer-beams from afar and you just CANT get close to him, just equip your rifle and pump him full of lead. You can be a rogue, and be all sneakety sneak stabby mcstab with your dual-daggers, OR you can dualwield pistols, and unleash a barrage of bullets on your foes from the shadows. All builds work, all are not just equally effective, but equally demanded. There are some moments in the game where whether you like it or not, you WILL have to fight ranged, and other moments where regardless of if you like it or not, you WILL have to go melee. All classes can do it, all are equally good at it.

4: Personal Story.This is one that is shared with SWTOR and one that I wish other MMOs would do in the future. INTEGRATE THE GOD-DAMNED PLAYER TO THE STORY!

In neither GW2 nor SWTOR are you a random "adventurer", a faceless nameless mook hired by the REAL heroes who suck up all the glory (Looking at you Maiev, Tirion and Thrall >_> It was ME who killed Illidan, The Lich King, and Deathwing, you glory-suckers took all the credit for those). Instead, on GW2 and SWTOR, you are the protagonist of your story, the central figure, the big cheese. On GW2, on character creation you are given liberty to choose a background for your character (if human, Are you from the high class? the poor? the middle class? are you an orphan? did your sister died? ect) These background questions shape the story of your protagonist, creating a near endless amount of possible combinations to pick from (a shame that class plays almost no role at all on your story other than some offhand comments)

This is a big draw on the game, with every major quest being voiced, you being part of an integral story that is a part of the larger world, and you having a PROTAGONIC role on your story, rather than be the side-kick of someone else.

5: No Factions. This may seem like a small thing, but trust me, for me, its a biggie. Ever since wow, there's been always a pointless needless faction vs faction drama BS on forums, videos, and everywhere. Same old story, rabid alliance fans, raging horde fans, insulting the crap out of each other and creating a highly unfriendly environment. Go to SWTOR and its republic vs empire, go to Aion and its Devans vs Asmodians, its the same blah blah. In GW2 there are no factions, no need for a group of players to feel morally superior, equal footing for everyone, all are on the same side. If there is any rivalry its gonna be between servers, who will duke it out on pvp and WvW, but otherwise, there is no infighting between the races.

And as a certain song says "That's the way (uhuh uhuh) I like it (uhuh uhuh) that's the way (uhuh uhuh) I like it (Ohh yeah)"

6: Graphics and Art Style: As much as I LOVE wow, there's a simple fact I can't deny: The game's engine hasn't aged well. They may implement a more realistic looking water, better shadows, better sunshafts, but at its core, the players, the environment, the textures, still have the same cartooney feel of 2004. And while that looked gorgeous in 2004, we're in 2012 now, nearing 2013. Plus, as much as it used to be quirky and funny on the RTS, the overall cartoonish design of....... everything can get old after a while. Cue GW2, a game that has a truly breath-taking design, and some impressive vistas, and well.............. suddenly pandaria don't look so pretty no more. The game has a more realistic design for characters and enemies, and the world has high-res textures, and almost all the advantages that modern gaming allows in regards to eye-candy.

THE BAD

Not everything is rays and sunshine however, and here are the things about GW2 that I don't like. They're not bad enough to put me off the game (which is more than can be said for other MMOs I've tried in order to fill the gaps between patches in wow) but they're bad enough to be included on this list, because in order to be truly objective and unbiased, you need to look at the pretty side of a game, and the ugly side as well. Not just pick a side and focus on that.

1: No mounts. For some this may seem like a trivial matter, but for me it is not, Mounts are a big part of being an adventurer, going beyond the horizon. Having to "walk" everywhere is lame, and doing an off-screen teleport is equally lame. One of the biggest turn-offs of cataclysm was how there was portals everywhere, Azeroth had stopped being a world, and started being a series of rooms with magical doors. I don't want the same to be for Tyria, and yet that seems to be the case, because there is no way to simply ride out to the adventure, you have to go on foot (and don't deny it, walking is boring, its slow, it looks tedious). There are waypoints you can unlock, but these have the same problem as the portal-infestation on wow did, they are instantaneous. I would had liked more a "Flight-Master" system instead, where you at least get to fly (even if on a rail) around the world and see it as you travel from place to place, but no, just click the waypoint, click where you wanna go, fade-to-black, and voila, here you are, thanks for traveling with us.

LAME.

I wanna ride out into the wild yonder, in my trusty steed, with the horizon challenging me to chase it. With such a gorgeous world, and so many random events at your disposal, we should be able to have some mounts, its bad enough they said they will never add flying mounts, but no ground mounts? REALLY? =(

2: No variety in PVP. There are so many different ways to do pvp in wow, battlegrounds, arenas, rated Bgs, world pvp, duels. And yet there are so little ways to pvp on GW2. For one thing, there are no duels, or world pvp, you will NEVER be able to attack another player from your realm, or attack any player outside of a pvp zone. There are no arenas either. And as far as battlegrounds go, while there are 3, they all have the exact same objective (Capture nodes to gain resources, first team to reach the resource cap wins, so.......... basically Arathi Basin)

This is so not cool I don't even know how to say it >_< Imagine if wow only had 3 BGs, Arathi Basin, Gilneas, and another BG that had the same objective as gilneas but in a different zone. It would SUCK. Variety is the spice of life, there should be more modes of pvp on GW2, from the classical capture the flag, to some more creative modes like protect your king, or besiege the enemy fortress. But being stuck on capture-the-node ALL THE TIME, is quite lame, even if the layout of the battleground changes, the objectives will be the same all the time. Plus, when it comes to pvp, there are times where you just don't wanna be doing any objectives and just duke it out on a battle of simple domination, AKA arenas, where the only rule is "kill the enemy before it kills you". That you have to pretty much do AB and rated AB all the time feels like a major disappointment for me. At least the saving grace of GW2's pvp is WvW, which looks ABSURDLY FUN. Mixing the best concepts of Alterac Valley, and Lineage IIs castle sieges.

I can only hope they add more different varieties of BGs on future patches and expansions.

3: Too much dependency on Dynamic Events. Now before ya'all jump on me, I wanna clarify that I think Dynamic events are fun, (or at least they look fun, I haven't played the game yet, only seen game footage) however, being the main way to gain exp seems a bit off for me. I like the traditional quests. Call me old fashioned but that's how I've played since.......... I dunno, ever? Dynamic Events seem a bit too impersonal for my taste. I'm strolling on the countryside, suddenly I get a pop up that some goblins are attacking a mine. I dunno who are they, why are they attacking, or why should I even care, but I still go there and stop them, and then voila, I get exp and money.

Absolutely no interaction with an NPC, no reason to care, no info, just a random attack. And while those are GOOD to give the world this organic "Alive" feeling, it being the SOLE way to level up (without going into PVP and crafting) is a little unfair. IMO they should had added more renown hearts, and quests for those who CHOOSE to level up this way. Pleasing everyone is hard, but this is one bit where it could had been done. If anything, by making hearts repeatable so you can level via story-quests and hearts, peppering it with the ocational Dynamic event.

But staying at a DE all the time is something I suspect will get old quickly. I mean, sure, Battle for Undercity felt EXTRAORDINARILY GOOD the first time I did it, but by the sixth time, I was all like "jeez, can't this thing go any faster?". I have this lingering suspicion that by the 50th time I have to save some random village of some random attack by some random mobs, the DEs will become absolutely tedious, and if they are THE ONLY way to level up, I will have to grind my teeth and just do it if I want to get to the cap. And while the first toon I level I probably won't care what level i am, my goal is to have one of each class at the cap, so eventually I'll just want to quest up and get it over with.

This is all I can think of for the moment :P Yes I know this was a lengthy read, but if you reached here, thanks for reading the whole thing. I would like to add that this is all just my opinion, and by no means to be taken as facts or anything like that. Just my subjective point of view.

Honestly, I don't see how that could be playable, especially with ground targeted abilities, or professions that have more of those F-skills (Elementalist's attunements, for example. I'd probably change right bumper to a modifier key and use rbp+ABXY for those). It'll be very clunky, and you won't be able to type, but it should be possible. (you'll need to use Xpadder or something similar, of course)

As to the pros and cons- I only played BWE3, and then only for a few hours, not wanting to spoil to game for myself, so I can't comment too much on this, but a few thoughts:

PRO
-Combat is much more active than traditional MMORPGs.
-No 'holy trinity' of tank/healer/dps
-Dynamic content and level scaling means that you're not forced into any specific area in order to progress.
-No real limitations on who you play with- This is the best thing about it, in my opinion. I can play with any of my friends, regardless of server, level, race, guild, zone, progression, whatever, and the game is set up in such a way that having other people around won't hinder your progress (people can't take your mining nodes, there's no killstealing or mob tagging, everyone gets loot etc. It makes you feel like other players are allies, not rivals, which makes the game much more social)
-PvP is EXCEPTIONAL, from what I've seen of it.
-The world is amazing- I actually felt the desire to explore simply for the sake of exploration, something which I tend not to do in MMOs. My friend and I had some fun trying to get to all the vistas in rata sum. And speaking of rata sum, the cities are brilliant- They're big, especially divinity's reach (I think that was the name..) but never feel empty. NPCs react to your presence and don't just stand around in one spot until you click on them. They've done a good job of making the world and the cities feel alive.
-No mounts. Listing this as a pro, but this is very subjective. Personally, I think it's a good thing, as mounts, especially flying, trivialise the world and limits your desire to explore. It's designed so that you can get to any place you need to be fairly fast, with the waypoint system, so mounts aren't really needed

CONS
-Running animations can look a bit weird (I didn't notice it that much, personally, but it might put some people off)
-Voice acting can be a little bit bland at times (Considering the amount of dialogue in this game, I'm not really surprised. Asura voices are excellent, though. Also, Felicia Day as a story NPC. Sold..)
-It may feel repetitive after level cap (I only got to level 11, so I can't comment on this, but it was a slight worry I've been having- there's no 'endgame' in the same sense as WoW; No raids, no gear-treadmill, no endless rep grinds. That sounds like a good thing, but if PvE is just more of the same, then that could be a worry. We won't know until later, though)
-Crafting system looks a bit shallow (I didn't experience it firsthand, though)
-The story writing is a bit lackluster early on (Asura and Norn starting zone are all I've experienced, and only up to levels 11 and 7, respectively)

I could add a lot more positives to this, but I don't want to be too biased, and, of course, opinions will differ in any case.
Hope I've helped

Now he's playing mage, in fact he's looking for a simple class and maybe a new good pad with more buttons
(i think he use some button as modifier like alt/ctrl/shift)

If you look at how GW2 is setup (5 main skills, weapon swap and 4 utility 1 epic) I think you'll be able to fit them in nicely.

I'm impressed that he makes it work with a gamepad in WoW. I also did pvp with a frost mage and I needed quite a few skills at my disposal. But then again you can also play like this guy... and they say blizzard know how to balance pvp. What a joke.

If you look at how GW2 is setup (5 main skills, weapon swap and 4 utility 1 epic) I think you'll be able to fit them in nicely.

I'm impressed that he makes it work with a gamepad in WoW. I also did pvp with a frost mage and I needed quite a few skills at my disposal. But then again you can also play like this guy... and they say blizzard know how to balance pvp. What a joke.

Btw my friend played only with that joypad for 5 years so idk, perhaps he will be fine

He might as well give it a spin - if it works for him, it works.

In many ways I found it easier than WoW because of the limited number of skill mappings at any one time...and the movement works well though the camera panning didn't map well to the controller (too slow), but that could just be the way I set it up. As I said, the only bit that might be annoying is the very fine control stuff - ground targeting, specifically.